Team RunnersConnect brings July in with a bang: 12 PRs and several stellar first races in distances from the 4 miler to the marathon.

Sean Regan raced the Kids Against Hunger 5K in Minneapolis, MN coming across the finish line with the time of 19:52 which was a PR of 44 seconds.

seanThis 5K was a PR for me, by 44 seconds. Goal was to break 20 minutes, and I finished at 19:52. I forgot my GPS watch so had to run by feel. And the field was relatively small at about 450 runners, so I was running on my own for the entire race. As a bonus, I was 5th overall, and 1st in my age category, with my wife and daughters at the finish line to high-5 and celebrate with. But here’s the best part: When my 8 yr old daughter met me at the finish line, she asked me if I’d help her train to run a 5K together this fall. That’s a dream come true right there!

Ricardo Lopez ran the YMCA Independence Day 10K in  Newbury Park, CA finishing this distance with a time of 48:01 which was a PR of 1 minute.

RicardoA rolling hilly course that averages 100ft per mile. It got warm fast, too! The best thing wasn’t so much getting a PR, but improving on the same course by over 2-minutes from last year’s race! For some reason it seems like every 10K I race is always hilly, so maybe something close to 45 minutes might be possible if I actually ran a flat 10K!

 

Vanessa Jewell ran the Brownville Freedom Run 5K in Brownville, NE finishing with a time of 23 minutes and 41 seconds which was a PR of 27 seconds.

VImpromptu 5K run on the 4th of July. Went out with the mindset that I was going to “go for it” – and did it. Ran fairly even splits and didn’t have much left in the tank at the end. Felt great to hit a new PR, especially since I’m not training for 5Ks right now!

 

Kamran Rahbar ran the Coronado 4th of July 15k in  San Diego, CA finishing with a time of 1:04:26 which was a PR of 2 minutes and 48 seconds.

KamranThis is a great race on 4th of July, at Beautiful Coronado Island in San Diego. Its Special because of the independence day for our Country. The course is beautiful with Ocean Views! It was a hot and humid morning for San Diego! I ran a negative split race. Overall it was a P.R. Last year for the same race my time was 1:07 :12 seconds, this year it was 1: 04 : 24 seconds. 2 minutes and 48 seconds faster than last year. Over all I am happy but would like to run much faster. Need lots more Aerobic Training. Thanks.

Thomas TAit ran the Gold Coast Half Marathon in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia finishing his first half marathon which a time of 1.36.14.

Releasing how far I have come in fitness and speed.

Andie Simpson ran the Firecracker 6 Run/Walk which is a 6 mile race in Indianapolis, IN coming across the finish line with a time of 1:25:58 which was a PR of 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

AndieThis is the first race I’ve participated in where I really feel that I “raced”!  I went into it knowing that I wanted to improve my time from last year and that, based on my recent paces, it wouldn’t be easy, My mom had advised me to “quit being psycho…stop thinking and just run”. I did that and was able to find the edge of “this is a little uncomfortable” and stayed there the whole race.  Fortunately, that was enough to give me a PR that I could be quite proud of and now I know that I can survive in that uncomfortable zone. Funny thing is, I realized mom was right…again…I was going a lot faster when I was thinking less.

Jaron Brown raced the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA which is 10K finishing this distance in the time of 44 minutes and 54 seconds which was a PR by 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

JaronBI’m happy to say that I accomplished both my race goals: my official time was 0:44:54. What’s more, the jet lag actually played to my advantage – I was exhausted when I got home from the airport and passed out at 8:00 pm, which allowed me to get a whopping 8 hours of sleep the night before the race. That amount of sleep is unheard for me. All credit goes to the RC team for setting me up with a perfect plan on which I could execute…I must say I executed perfectly. All things fell into place and I feel great! On to the next challenge with the great help of the RC team!

Christophe Cadiou raced the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA coming across the finish line with a time of 40 minutes and 28 seconds which was a PR by 6 seconds.

CCadiouOverall, I am very happy with the result – I was not expecting a PR out of this race. This is also a very encouraging result towards my objective of breaking 40mn in the Fall.

 

Eric Gutke raced the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA finishing with a time of 52:23 which was a PR of 54 seconds.

Eric GThis was my 5th consecutive Peachtree Road Race and it was a great day for running with 60,000 people! The usual hot and humid weather gave us a break with temps in the mid 60s and low humidity. Even though I was up in the 3rd start wave this year (out of 24!) I still had the usual problem of it being too crowded to set my own pace for the first mile, but it did keep me from going out too fast. I came in at 52:23, which is a 10k PR of 54 seconds from 2 months ago, and a new course PR of 4:15 over last year. I’m greatly looking forward to continued improvement with team Runners Connect!

Adam Feder raced the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, GA coming across the finish line with a time 49:21.

AdamFIt wasn’t a 10K PR but it was a Peachtree Road Race PR by 3 seconds. Considering my training has been very poor over the last few months and the training I have done has been for ultramarathon racing (almost no speed work) I’m stunned that I was able to get a race PR. What made this race special, though, was all the friends I saw and being able to stop along the course by the Shepherd Spinal Center (about 2/3 of the way up cardiac hill) to say hello to and shake hands with Andrew Powell. AP, as he is known in the ATL running circles, is recovering from a devastating accident where he and his brother-in-law Frank, an Atlanta firefighter and father of triplet little girls, were run down by a car while on a training ride the day before a half-ironman triathlon in Louisiana. Frank was killed and AP was left with terrible injuries. But I have seen him out at the park a couple of times while I’m working with the Kilometer Kids I coach and he is so inspirational. So being able to stop and say hello while having a “RunAP” logo pinned to my bib just made this race for me. The race PR was unexpected and completely secondary.

Erica Melton ran the Red, White & Blue Shoes 5K in Greenville, SC finishing this race with a time of 32:45. She ran a strong and consistent race using mantras to stay strong in the final mile when the heat was rising.

EMOfficial time of 32:45 and a much faster time than I expected since I haven’t ran a sub 11 min pace since my last 5K race back on February 1st! Just goes to show you, running slow does make you faster! It felt good to run a sub 33 min 5K in a summer race, something I’ve only done twice before! Of course the humidity levels were no where near as bad as they have been which helped tremendously.

Stacy Thomas ran the Mineral Point Historic Run which was 5 miler in Mineral Point, WI finishing this hilly race in the time of 40:55.

It was by far the most hilly race I’ve ever done…..nothing flat!

Russ Shupe ran the Red, White, and Boom Half Marathon in Minneapolis, MN finishing this distance with a time of 1:53:48 which was a PR of 7 minutes and 49 seconds.

RussMy time goal was to get in under the 2:00 hour mark for this one being my second half and I accomplished that easily. I also felt that this course which has some significant hills in the first half of the race was a great prep mentally and physically for the course I will be running in October for the full. That is not to mention the atmosphere of running on the 4th of July with a few thousand other people to honor those who served their country (like my Dad) to preserve the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And the neighborhoods we ran through were full of folks cheering the runners. This is a race I will be doing again.

Maryjane Llamas ran the Independence 5k in Virginia Beach, VA coming across the finish line with a time of 28:45.

I was attempting to beat my time from last 5k PR (28:28). I didn’t beat my time, however when I ran this 5k on 4th of July, it was under tropical storm conditions (Arthur) along with up to 26mph winds and finished it only 17s slower (28:45) than my 5k PR (which was ran in perfect condition, i.e. zero wind, no humidity in Nov 2013). So all in all, I’m still happy with this 5k.

Michelle McBurney ran the Gold Coast Airport Marathon in Gold Coast, Australia, finishing this distance with a time of 5:23:04.

MichelleI have been battling an immune flare since a tummy bug 14 June. I was doing personal records in May. I finished this race in 4:27 last year and had been hoping for 4:15 this year. Being a believer in miracles I ran at my pre-bug planned pace. By 16 k I had to run walk… with 10k to go I could only walk.  I ran by my kids waiting for me to go by… so they would not worry when they did not see me when expected. The whole thing was quite traumatic. I was seriously struggling while walking.  But I finished! Marathon number 7 was my slowest ever… but Marathons are always an adventure, and you deal with what happens on the day.  I will go for that personal record my next marathon.

Chantal Ouellet ran the Marathon mamu which is 10k finishing with a time of 57 minutes and 15 seconds which was a PR of 2 minutes and 45 seconds.

This race was a special event because it was organized by native people. Special too because it was very hot weather. It might be a PR for me but I was expecting a much better time.

Ben Bratcher ran the Gun Barrel City Independence Day 5k in Texas coming across the finish line with a time of  26:04 which gave him a PR and an Age Group award.

BenBMy 15 year old daughter is training for her upcoming Cross Country season. She really wanted to run a race so we found this small local race and entered the day before. We both won our age division and she was #2 female overall. It is always special when I can run with her and this one was just a lot of fun.

 

Mary Stocker ran the An Edmonds Kind of 4th which is a 5K in Edmonds, WA in the time of 26:06.

MarySJust a local 5k fun run before the 4th of July parade along the parade route.
Not a great start, too slow, too far back. I did learn that I am capable of making up time in the middle and end race. In the future consider where I start in a race that short.

 

Patrick Douglass ran the Firecracker 4 which is a 4 miler in Saratoga, NY finishing with a time of  30 minutes and 11 seconds.

PatrickDFirst time running the 4 mile distance. It was a nice day with about 4000 other runners and the event had some great festivities. Running it with my family is what it was really all about.

 

Anthony Beks ran the Gold Coach Aiprport marathon in Gold, Coast Australia finishing this distance with a time of 3:39:04 which was a PR of over 23 minutes.

Great weather, felt good most of the way and learnt from my first marathon. Plus a big PB

Nicola P ran the Gold Coast Airport Marathon in Gold Coast, Australia finishing her first marathon with the time of 3:37:21.

This was my first marathon. I only switched training program from the half to the marathon during the 10 day taper. I was a little concerned about my long run only being 29km and not practicing any nutrition because I always do my long runs fasted for half training. I had also skipped a couple of workouts and a long run during the peak weeks when I was on holiday. I did a 2 minute negative split and ended up passing a couple of much faster runners from my local park run near the end

Want to See Just How Much We Can Help You?

Check out how our plans work and how we help runners like you stay healthy and take their training to new levels